When Booth left the bathroom, he was carrying his clothes and had a towel wrapped around his torso. It had taken longer than he expected to get all the blood off his face. Booth had been surprised that he didn't have any obvious marks from his fight earlier. He didn't see or hear Mattie or Jett in the house, so he assumed they had gone to the park. He went back to his room and put a pair of long, jean shorts and a black shirt. He found another pair of clean socks, but these had little hockey pucks all over them versus the white he had been wearing. He slipped his tennis shows on, and was about to head out the door to go to the park when the phone rang. He debated about just letting the answering machine pick up, but decided he might as well pick it up.

"Griffen residence."

"Hi, is Mr. Seeley Booth there?"

"Yeah. This is him." That was weird, because no one called him mister or really knew he was here.

"I'm calling from Methodist Hospital. We just had to pick up a boy from a local park, and his babysitter asked for us to call you and two other numbers." Booth's heart sunk.

"Are you calling about Jett?"

"Yes, Jethro Griffen had to come in."

"Is he alright?" Booth was beginning to panic; this was his eleven year old they were talking about.

"He's doing okay. He broke his arm at the park. I'm not positive about the details; you'll have to ask the babysitter."

"I'll be there as soon as I can." Booth immediately called the taxi company and had them pick him up and drive to the hospital. All that could go through Booth's mind was how his cousin could have broken his arm. Jett wasn't one to do stupid stuff, and Mattie would stop him if he tried. Wouldn't she?

Booth felt like the taxi was going way to slow. But when he finally arrived at the hospital, he paid the cabbie and ran inside. He asked the nurse at the front desk where Jett was. From there, he bolted to the second floor. He was relieved when he saw Mattie sitting there.

"Mattie!" she turned and saw him.

"I'm sorry, Booth. I'm so sorry." Booth thought he saw a single tear fell, but Mattie wiped it away before Booth had a chance to be sure.

"What happened?"

"I stopped paying attention for a minute at most, and then I couldn't find him. I looked for fifteen minutes when I saw him playing tackle football with some people. They looked like they were fifteen or so, but they were surrounding him. And he was sitting on the ground cradling his arm. Booth, I've only felt this guilty one other thing in my life. I'm sorry. I swear I only looked away for a minute."

"You let my eleven year old cousin go play tackle football with fifteen year olds! Do you realize how stupid that is? I thought you were smart, Mattie. Or maybe you can only focus on school! Because if you're certainly don't care enough people who think of as family! You told me that Jett and Aunt Tia and Uncle Elliot where like family to you, but you couldn't focus on Jett long enough to make sure that he doesn't get killed by a few fifteen year olds! What made you think you were good with kids? Because from where I'm standing right now, you can't even watch one for a few weeks during the day."

"Booth… I'm sorry." Mattie's eyes were filling with tears, but Booth didn't care right then.

"Where's Jett?"

"In the ER getting his arm fixed," she said quietly, not daring to look him the eye. "They won't let anyone besides his parents back there."

Booth groaned. "When will they be here?"

"They're both on the next flight back to Chicago. He'll probably be done before they get back."

An awkward silence filled the air between them. After about ten minutes, a girl who had been sitting in the waiting room approached Booth, looking a little afraid.

"Yeah?" Booth asked her, still tense and irritated.

"I heard that lady call you 'Booth'. In school we're learning about President Lincoln. The guy who killed him was name was Booth. Are you related to him?"

"Marie! That's not very polite," her mother scolded from across the room.

"It's fine," Booth answered. "Yeah, he's my great-great-great-grandfather."

"Do you like our country?"

"Marie!" The mother was clearly not happy with her daughter's line of questions.

"Yeah; I love this country, and I like the president, and every type of person who lives here, except the really bad people." The girl seemed satisfied with the answer and went to sit next to her mother again who immediately began explaining why you don't ask people questions like that.

"I didn't know that," Mattie told Booth after a minute.

"Yeah, well, it's not something I publicize a lot," he answered trying to end the conversation, which he succeeded at.

They fell back into the awkward silence. Booth began to focus on the television. They had the twelve o'clock news on at the moment and Booth found it calmly distracting, though he had to read the close captions to find out what they were talking about. It made it temporarily forget where he was and why. There was nothing very exciting. They talked about big trial in DC; some brilliant lawyer, Heather Taffy or something had convinced whoever was on trial. There was talk about how to keep kids from overheating. After the commercial, the anchorman came back. "We have some breaking news. There is a missing teenager in the area. Her name is Mattie Johnston." A picture of the babysitter appeared next to anchor. "She was reported missing by her social worker…"

"Mattie," Booth grumbled.

"I see," she sighed. "I guess I should go find a doctor and call the local authorities." She stood up, and went to the desk in the room with nurses. A few minutes later, Mattie was being pulled into the back to have a physical. She looked at Booth, sadness and remorse filling her eyes as she went towards the back.

This made Booth start thinking about what he had said to her. He knew it wasn't her fault. He wouldn't be able to keep his eye on Jett constantly; he shouldn't expect anyone else to do so. And the comment about her not being able to watch Jett was way inappropriate.

About an hour later, Jett came out of the ER with his arms in a cast. Booth stood up and rushed to him.

"Jett, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I broke my arm. I tackled the kid though."

"What were you thinking trying to play with a bunch of fifteen year olds?"

"Griffens never back away from a challenge," he answered proudly; Booth just rolled his eyes.

"Okay, well, you aren't allowed to play football, any more, bub. You're parents won't let you. At least not for a week or so after your cast comes off."

"How do you know?"

"Because that's what I would do if I was them." Jett groaned. "We've got to wait for your parents to get here to give insurance information."

"Okay," the kid answered, sitting next to his cousin. "Where's Mattie?"

Booth hadn't even thought about how to explain where she went to the eleven year old. Aunt Tia and Uncle Elliot, yeah; they had a right to know that they're babysitter needed a reason to stay out of her foster home. But an eleven year old boy who practically worshiped the ground she walked on, not so much.

"Mattie had to go home. Her parents were worried about her, and they had some family stuff she forgot about."

"When will she be back?"

"I don't know, bub; I don't know."

Okay, so theres one more chapter left. I'm thinking about doing a sequel about what would happen if Mattie got caught up in a murder case... would anyone be interested in reading that?